Talk:Saltpeter
Dungeon Mining and Luck
"According to the unofficial test completed on July 4, 2011 by Multani, luck plays no significant role in the frequency or the quality of niter deposit discovered while mining in dungeons. The test was done -albeit briefly- mining for 2 hours with 0 luck, and 2 hours with 800 luck with a miner character wearing +5 Mining blacksmithing bod reward gloves."
This is not accurate and probably should not be included. In my experience luck plays a major role first in size of the deposit and secondly in the success of discovery. UO Developer Phoenix_Mythic has mentioned this on numerous occasion...[1] [2] and even in the publish notes themselves [3] The stratics craftsmen forums dares to differ too. 800 luck is a little too low for comparison as many miners top out well over 2000 while they mine(with the 7th anni statue bonus) Running at 2100+ luck for an hour I routinely end up with 2000 saltpeter. Just dropping to 1400+ luck after that significantly reduces the amount I end up with but I need to document. --TullyMars 16:02, 5 July 2011 (PDT)
- The main comment used for the dungeon mining section (about 8x8 tiles and 5 minutes) is here. Other Phoenix's comments are (see links above):
- "The alternative to buying saltpeter is to mine it. It can be mined at a rate of 1,000 units or more per hour in a dungeon, with a mediocre luck suit and GM mining skill." and
- "If you are a GM miner and have an easily-imbued 750 luck suit, the odds of finding a niter deposit.. (..) In a dungeon, the odds are a bit different. Depending on how you go about it, you could find niter deposits at least three times as frequently and their average size would be at least twice as large."
- The last comment is included on boat mining section but not to the dungeon mining since it is not clear if he means "at least three times as frequently and their average size would be at least twice as large" with "GM miner and have an easily-imbued 750 luck suit" or not. Also, it seems Multani did not observe three times the frequency or twice the size, which was "at least" in the statement, with 800 luck which is higher than 750 (did he mean at most?). Maybe only the real skill counts so with a +5 mining gloves, the effect of the luck is evaluated as 95 mining which might be adjusted to be much lower than GM inside the formula.
- The statement makes it clear that a test was conducted by a player which resulted in those unofficial findings, however you're right to say it contradicts with the Phoenix's comments or the findings of other players. I do not have a character with mining skill in my home shard so I can only test it in TC1. If another test results the same way, we can emphasize more on the 800 luck, like "does not appear to result in a significant change until 800 luck". But I will pm Phoenix directly to check with him first. Nimuaq 23:06, 5 July 2011 (PDT)
- Thanks Nim, I will try do some testing on my miner at various luck levels. Hopefully Multani can share his results and we can actually figure out a baseline on how to test this out. Right now it is pretty anecdotal on all sides. Just want to keep UOGuide as accurate as possible. No need to feed the fire on uoguide bashing lol. --TullyMars 10:17, 6 July 2011 (PDT)
User:Multani: Howdy! First I apologize for not fully understanding how to format things, all this code stuff (although simple) is giving me a headache! The test that I did wasn't at all comprehensive obviously, but I can do a more serious test. Although I don't think I'll be able to attain such high luck above 1200 (my suit is 800 + 400 from a statue). In my experience so far, with 100 base mining skill and +5 gloves=105 mining and an 800 luck suit, I only unearth massive and gigantic deposits (nothing lower has appeared upon discovery). And in a quick and dirty test of testing only 800 luck vs 0 luck, the difference in saltpeter mined in 2 hours was negligible. It's very possible that there is a minimum luck required in order to gain a bonus in discovery, or that I just had quite a lot of 'personal' luck that day :). Also, admittedly 2 hours mining with/without luck is not a very long time. I'm happy to conduct a more official test on my home shard of Napa Valley, any recommendations?
Also, I don't know who Phoenix is, but if he was the one that said that a mediocre luck suit and gm mining gives 1000 saltpeter per hour, that's spot on to what I received with and without luck. I didn't make any other comments about saltpeter on that page I believe, I've never tried boat mining I believe that was someone else's input.
- First off, glad to have you aboard Multani. Don't worry too much about the coding, Nimuaq is getting used to following up on some of my junk coding :) Your results are interesting and cannot be ignored but I was hoping to help out and put them through the ringer a bit before we post up on the official page.
To continue here is the data I plan to collect during some tests over the next week.
| Mining Skill | Location | Method | Evidence | Luck | Duration | # of Swings | Number of discovered | Total Saltpeter | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unmodified | Modified | Description | Type | Gigantic | Massive | Huge | Large | Small | ||||||
| unmod | mod | loc | loctype | meth | evid | luck | dur | #swing | #gig | #mass | #huge | #large | small | saltpeter |
| unmod2 | mod2 | loc2 | loctype2 | meth2 | evid2 | luck2 | dur2 | #swing2 | #gig2 | #mass2 | #huge2 | #large2 | small2 | saltpeter2 |
Nimuaq 11:43, 6 July 2011 (PDT)